everlasting
by songs
Summary: au. in another lifetime, katara dreams of him; — ო zutara.


**title: **everlasting

**pairing: **zuko ო katara.

**disclaimer: **i own nothing.

* * *

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_we may never meet again._

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* * *

"I feel like I knew you," Katara says, palms skimming down the length of her hair. "I feel—"

"What?" he scoffs, from his seat on the bench. They are somewhere in the middle of the city; the lines of the busy streets are blurred in her mind. All she sees is _him_. "This is weird, even for you."

"—like I hated you, once."

There is a stretch of quiet, before he finally mumbles, "Oh."

"I'm sorry," she murmurs, dipping her head. She steps towards him, but doesn't sit. "It wasn't just hate, though. It was a lot of other things."

When she looks up, his eyes are on hers, amber and unwavering and raw with emotions she is not wise enough to know, "Like?"

"I don't know," she snaps. "These feelings...they feel so far away, you know? Intangible. Like they've been a part of me for so long that they faded around the edges and I can't find them, anymore—"

"Katara." His voice cradles her name, and she suddenly feels very heady. His hands are enveloping hers, and his head is tilted so that their foreheads almost touch. She wonders just when he stood up and why she doesn't mind him being so, so close, "It's okay. It's _okay. _Don't worry over things that are over and done with."

Katara turns away, "I'm supposed to be a smart girl," she says, more to herself than anyone. "Smart girls don't fall in love with things that aren't there."

They aren't touching anymore. Everything about him is lifetimes away: his tunic, the pointed shoes, and the old-world passion that lingers in the raspy angles of his voice. And then there is the scar, red as fate and deeper than bones, both blaring and dreamlike in the hazy contours of her mind.

He looks like he's struggling when he says, lowly, "Forget, Katara. It's been so long." The way his hands twitch and turn, restless and aching like doves in the Spring, speaks volumes.

And Katara knows, then, that once upon a time, the two of them—

"Do you think," she whispers, urgently, rushing towards him like there are fairies in her bones. "That some things can transcend lifetimes?"

—shared something like love. Or maybe something even more than that, too vast to be pinned to a single word.

"Wake up, Katara." is all he says, but the feel of his piano-fingers tracing over the pink of her lip tells her something else.

* * *

Katara goes through the school-day in a daze; in everything she does she sees the boy with the scar, ghosting over her thoughts with his face and words and touches.

She eats with her brother, Sokka, and his girlfriend, Suki, during lunch. Her best friends, Aang and Toph, are late, but come towards the end of the period, thighs touching when they sit.

She cannot help but feel like a fifth wheel, but they are all her friends so she doesn't shy away, and asks what's been weighing down her mind, "Do you guys think that we...reincarnate?" At their blank looks, she clarifies, "Like, we live millions of lifetimes, not just this one."

Sokka groans, "I thought you were over your 'deep, thoughtful, artistic' phase, sis."

"I'm not trying to be deep, thoughtful, or artistic!" Katara snaps. "I just...want to know what you guys think. I've been wondering..." she trails off, unsure of how to word what she wants to say.

"I think it's _great _that Katara is thinking all spiritually," Aang chimes in, pride evident in his tone. "And I don't see why we couldn't be reincarnations of... past selves and stuff. It's kinda cool to think about."

"I'll bet I was a badass in each and every one of my lives," Toph declares, picking absently at her ear, a dreamy look on her face. "I was definitely a ninja at one point. Definitely."

Suki giggles. "Well, then, I hope I made it to a black-belt in Tae Kwon Do in at least one of my lives."

"I hope I helped people..." Aang says around a bite of salad.

Sokka is eerily silent throughout the conversation, and Katara waits, because she knows her brother has something important to say if he's been pondering for so long.

"I don't think that we'd be too different from our... past selves." His tone is careful, thoughtful, even though Katara knows that her brother doesn't believe in things that are not concrete, scientific. "I doubt anyone has lived the same life again and again, but you'd probably have the same...soul, y'know?"

The entire table is speechless in the face of Sokka's rare moment of insight; a moment later, Toph grins, her milky eyes glimmering. "Wow, Sokka, who died and made you Oracle?"

Suki beams, "_I, _for one, am proud of him! Stepping out of his comfort zone and into the world of philosophy!" She plants a warm kiss on his cheek.

Aang laughs at their antics and Katara feels a little content, and a little like she's missing something that she might have had once upon a time.

* * *

When she prepares dinner that night, Sokka comes up to her and offers to help.

"This is new," she teases, but hands him some vegetables to chop as she marinates the meat. "But I'm not gonna complain."

He grins sheepishly at her, and is surprisingly adept with a knife; he finishes cutting the carrots and cucumbers in record time. Go figure.

"You know, Katara," he starts, and she is surprised to hear him use his Serious Voice, which is usually only reserved for the moments he speaks of their mother or a new invention or his deepest, most important thoughts. She straightens, and he continues, "I guess... there's a slim chance that we might all just keep on living and living, but eventually, I think that the line gets cut. People aren't immortal, Katara. We can't live forever. I don't think a soul can get stretched that thin. There are just too many memories to burn and sometimes it's just too difficult to start over."

She blinks at him, touched that he had thought over her question for so long. She smiles softly and says, "I guess you're right."

A moment later, the Serious Voice has devolved into something much more cheerful.

"Now, let's get started on that meat! I'm starved."

* * *

Before she sleeps, she notices Sokka gazing wistfully at the moon.

Something tugs at the back of her mind: a half-formed thought, maybe a memory, but it is gone in an instant.

* * *

"How long?" Katara asks. The _have you been gone, have we loved, have I lived_ are lost in the dream-air.

The boy sighs, fingers tangling into the ink of his hair, "Too long." And then he moves away, folding into himself. "Katara, I know you probably think I'm selfish or stupid, it's just, I can't—I can't let you go, even after all this time—"

"Shh," she soothes, hands slipping to either side of his face. He lets out something like a moan, and she traces gentle circles over the marred, tender skin. "I don't mind."

His eyes are closed, and he is so very open and vulnerable when he murmurs, "Do you—do you remember?"

Katara's breath hitches. "No." He stiffens, but doesn't pull away. "But I _know_. And I feel it. And I wish it didn't have to be like this."

He smiles ruefully. "That makes two of us."

Her hand finds its way around his, and they walk, quietly, the watercolor of a city spread before them. It's like a taste of destiny, deep-rooted yet fleeting, sure to leave gaping scars and open souls.

"Can you say it, once?" he asks, and her eyes travel up the bends of him, pleading and slightly hollow. "Please."

"Say what?" she questions, her voice going too high and sounding too brittle. "And, what do you mean 'once'? You can't—"

His eyes go soft. "There's still time for you, Katara." His smile is painfully, painfully sad. "Mine ran out a long time ago. And I love you enough to not take any more of yours."

The way he uses the word 'love' is so easy, like breathing, like air, and she's stricken, to the core. She's only sixteen, the 'l-word' is not supposed to come for a long, long while, but this boy has swept her off her feet like he has for all of her lives and she's not quite ready to let him go.

"I—"

"Just once," he murmurs. "Please. Before you forget."

"I won't—"

And then it all comes falling, drowning her like rain, like oceans, like air that is too thick with smoke and ships that stink of shimmering fishes and sweat and fire bursting from lungs and hands and palms and water dancing at the tips of her fingers and a boy with a scar surrounded by twinkling, crystal cave-light and the weight of hate and anger and the feeling of silk and stone on her neck and then lightning, speeding towards her, only to be caught by the heart of a boy made of scars—

"Zuko!" she breathes, and he brightens, fading into the distance. She sweeps after him, palms extended, tears trailing like rivers and she almost reaches him, almost—

"Thank you, Katara."

And her world goes white.

* * *

Katara wakes up the next morning, with wet eyes and tear stains on her cheeks.

She feels like something is missing, like something has changed, like something has been lost.

But for the life of her, she cannot figure out what it is.


End file.
